The project Creating Business Development Opportunity through Entrepreneurship Training and Coaching Measures in Edo and Lagos States is part of the Pro-Poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria Programme-SEDIN implemented by German International Cooperation (GIZ) and GOPA, which aims at fostering employment and income-generating opportunities for MSMEs through enhanced entrepreneurship skills, and improve access to employability skills. The project took a new turn with the introduction of a call to the expression of interest to facilitate training of the beneficiaries of ActionAid’s DARE TO HOPE migration II project, through CREATE and START modules of the ICSS in August 2022. The call saw the Society for the Empowerment of Young Persons winning the bid to facilitate the training, coaching and aftercare support for 500 beneficiaries of the DARE TO HOPE PROJECT in Benin City.
The project began on 29″ August 2022, with the training of these beneficiaries in the CREATE and START module, and lasted till 244 November 2022. Participants were drawn from 47 cooperatives that have been clustered through the DARE TO HOPE vocational skill training, who had undergone business formalization as cooperative societies and have been empowered with seed grants and workspaces. The training, coaching and facilitation as offered by the Society for the Empowerment of Young persons through 4 of its trainers, involved a blended approach of onsite and offsite learnings as it was with previous ICSS training, saw the beneficiaries undertaking a 15 days training in the both CREATE and START Modules in 4 Cycles. Each cycle had 2 training halls with about not less than 65 persons in each hall for the first 2 cycles, while the last 2 cycles had not less than 60 persons in each of the halls. SEYP had Emmanuel Vincent and Stella Ogba facilitating the training in Hall 1 while Esohe Idehen and Ebube Ezenwa were in charge of hall 2 throughout the duration of the training.
At the end of each cycle, the beneficiaries were able to develop individual and cooperative Business model canvass, Business plans and registration from a business service provider to aid their formalization in business and create a road map for their businesses. At the end of the 4 months of training, the project witnessed the training of 492 beneficiaries (127 males, 367 Females, and 63 returned migrants), spread across 47 cooperative societies. This lasted from 29″ August -24″ November
2022.
The Aftercare support for these beneficiaries has begun in earnest to foster continuity in coaching these beneficiaries and also address most of the peculiar challenges of the individual 47 cooperatives through visitations that will produce need assessments for coaching, and also group meetings to strengthen the already established business mentorship that has been established in the ICSS training. The aftercare services will last for 3 months between December 2022 to February 2023.